


You see nothing

by elephant_eyelash



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Biting, F/M, Nightmares, PTSD, Scratching, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-01
Updated: 2012-04-01
Packaged: 2017-11-02 21:31:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/373547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elephant_eyelash/pseuds/elephant_eyelash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for mockyrfears's LJ kink meme-- Arya/Gendry, "biting and scratching"</p>
            </blockquote>





	You see nothing

He makes her forget this life the minute she tells him to rip off her dress.

He complies, willing as always, tearing away the stitches that bind her skin. With a smirk she watches as the dress pools on the floor, golden thread dull in the light of the forge. Dirty, like her, like the girl underneath. The true girl, not the one Jon is parading around in front of the men in perfumed velvet. The girl who will push her lover to his cot and straddle him, bite his lip till she tastes blood, and will return back to the feast like nothing has happened. She'll carry the secret between her legs and smile. The ruined maiden of Winterfell, she thinks. That what they'll call her. But they'll call her the she-wolf as well, she thinks. That's what matters.

She likes the smell of the forge, the musty furs they cover themselves in and the burning coals that hit the back of her throat. But most of all she likes the sweat, the smell of worn leather, the taste of battle. And it's the taste of him, too. Earthy and strong, almost bitter.

She thinks of how Edric would smell in between his legs, like flowers, clean. He'd pass a song between his lips about her smile or her breasts. And it'd be just how it was before, when she was a little girl and she felt like she was approaching a slow death, when her life would be nothing more than an echo of a tale of some great man. The thought drifts over her again, but he sees it.

He is good at seeing past her masks, her training. Sometimes she will just stare into the distance, motionless for hours, not thinking or feeling anything, unaware of the passage of time. She can see his worry when she does that, but she doesn't want his worry. She just wants the few moments they can ever risk together to vanish completely from this life she doesn't want, this life she has never wanted.

It's cold at the wall, but the forge is the exception. Sometimes she imagines hell in the fires, the fires that Gendry and the others stare into every night, watching the flames dance. She wonders if that is the reason he took to the Fire God so easily, because the flames have never held any fears for him. But in the night it is only her name that slips through his lips like a prayer.

He always sleeps after they've been together, but she never does. She is too busy listening to the sounds of the Wall: the groan of the ice, the shattering winds. But moreso she listens for footsteps, the sheath of a dagger. She can't be found here, she knows it, because she is Arya Stark now, and Arya Stark doesn't belong in a forge with a bastard boy.

Her breath hitches as the wind rattles through the ice, whistling. She wants to wake him up again, to tell him to listen, to listen to how the world was changing around them. But he won't. All he needed was the rhythm of his hammer on steel...and her.

His arm extends to where she is sat, bringing her in closer. She doesn't understand him when he's like this, when he wants her to be near for any other reason than desire. The same boy who moments earlier would grab her and twist into her like she was made of paper, who would groan as she scratched his back until he bled, and would treat her like she really was-- a web of sensations and frustrations and not some delicate flower whimpering as a man did his business on top of her, motionless and unfeeling.

"C'mere." He mutters, trying to pull her closer, but she doesn't move.

"I need to go." She whispers.

"They won't be up for hours." He says. "Plus, when have you ever been caught?"

He's right. She knows the secrets of the Wall well by now, the places you can disappear, the movements of the shadows, like how a sailor knows the tides of the sea.

For a moment she thinks about it, about disappearing underneath the furs with him once more, throwing her dress in the fire and disappearing in him, in this strange place they have somehow carved out for themselves in the middle of a war. Maybe one day people would write songs about the Lovers on the Wall. But then she realised people didn't write songs about people like them.

He pulls her in, and for a moment she is overwhelmed by the sheer warmth of him, and how the smell of sex still lingered on in his skin. I have to go, she thinks. But then he's kissing her collarbone and she feels weak, his rough hands roaming over the curve of her stomach, her breasts. He lets her go on top, to control the rhythm of their movements together, to speak with their bodies.

Then she breaks.

She slaps him, and he isn't surprised when he tastes blood on his lips, and sees the anger, the fear in her eyes. The world spins around her, and he tries to catch her, but soon she is sobbing.

"You're such a boy." She cries. "You don't know anything. Vedete niente. Vedete niente. Vedete niente."

He grabs her, brings her into his chest while she growls, sobs. This happens every now and again. She does everything she can to bite him, scratch him, kill him, but he holds her until she stops struggling. Arya disappears and a shadow comes to take her place. Soon her breathing becomes less ragged and their world comes to a still. Now and again she sobs weakly in her sleep. He listens and later dreams of a time beyond this forge for them.

Her eyes flutter open, cold dawn approaching. She spots the scratches along Gendry's arms, kisses one each in turn as he snores lightly.

"I'm sorry." She mouths. Soon Jon would be looking for her. Soon she would have no choice but to be Arya Stark again. The edge between night and day, between two worlds, two faces, two names...That edge was theirs', poised like a knife edge, ready to cut through everything. He helps her tie up her dress, silent, fiddling over the gold thread. Patterns of flowers trace her back, shimmering in the pale firelight.


End file.
